


We Only Live Once (And I'm Searching For You)

by AvengersTime



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bakery, Gen, Homelessness, Poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 10:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvengersTime/pseuds/AvengersTime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve was six, an older rich boy named Tony helped him out. 20 years later, there's a familiar homeless man looting through the dumpster. AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Only Live Once (And I'm Searching For You)

**Author's Note:**

> For anonymous. It was a cute concept, and I put a little holiday twist to it.

When Steve was six years old and starving, rummaging through alleys to help his mother look for food in their tiny apartment barely keeping together, he almost got hit by a car. Mom told him to be careful, and he knew how to be. 

Except he was looking through the window of a store, at the Star Trek spaceship, in all its glory and price. It was the S.S. Enterprise, and it was the greatest thing Steve had ever seen. Ever.

As he’d started to back up with a paper bag with a half-eaten doughnut and two carrots the lady at the veggies center had given him, he slipped on the ice and fell flat on his face, paper bag flying from his grasp, and a car screeching to a stop just barely over him. 

He was gasping, and trying to scramble up to grab the bag in the middle of the road, but the onslaught of cars ran over it. 

“GET OUT OF THE ROAD, KID!” 

He scooted back onto the sidewalk, longingly toward the destroyed food instead of the gift. He felt pretty stupid now, because that was their only food they would be able to get until tomorrow afternoon or the next day, even. 

His stomach growled, mocking him. 

“Hey.”

He shot up from the ground, in a defensive position. His mom had tried to teach him how to defend himself as much as possible, not an easy feat, being as small and sickly as he was. A cold lungful of air caught in his throat and he coughed, wishing he still had his inhaler (he sold it for a week’s worth of food, a luxury, although his mother had been furious). 

A boy about his age, maybe older, stood in front of him. He had dark hair and eyes that reminded him of hot chocolate, black coat and red scarf wrapped snugly around him. Steve felt a little self-conscious with his ratty leather jacket and wool hat. 

“What do you want?” he asked, stepping aside to avoid streetwalkers. “I don’t have any money for you.”

The boy laughed. “I don’t want your money. Here.” He scuffled through his pockets and pulled out a delicate white paper bag labeled _Coulson’s Bakery_. Steve’s mouth watered involuntarily, and he stared as he offered it to him. 

“N-No, I can’t take this.” He paused, debating. “I can’t.” 

“You look like you need about three cheeseburgers today.” He shook the bag. “Take it or I make you take it.” 

Hesitantly, he took it and pressed it close. No way he was going to miss out on a chance like this. “Thank you, but why? You’re not trying to kidnap me and use me for child porn, are you?”

“What? No, man, I’m thirteen. Gross. I have money, you don’t and you need it.” The boy shrugged. He pointed to Steve’s coat. “You an army kid?”

“My dad. He died.” 

The boy nodded. “Sorry. You gonna be in it?”

“Maybe.”

“You should. You'll be Captain Needs A Cheeseburger. Or Capsicle, because you look frozen.” 

Steve cocked his head. 

The boy grinned. “Thanks for talking with me, Steve. I have to go. But one more thing.” 

He threw a $20 bill at him, and took off. Steve gaped down at the precious money in his hand and looked back up toward where the boy was running. 

“Wait! I don’t know your name!” he called. Mom said it was a polite thing to do, when someone was kind, and this was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for Steve. 

“Tony!” he called back. “Bye, Capsicle!”

Tony. 

When he showed his mother the two weeks’ worth of food in the bag and the $20 bill, she swooped him up and cried, which Steve thought was kind of ridiculous because they’d be eating good this Christmas. 

Two days later, he opened up his one present from his mother. _U.S.S. Enterprise_. 

He crossed it off with a marker and wrote _U.S.S. Tony_ (c'mon, he was six)

He went to the corner of Coulson’s Bakery nearly every Thursday for 4 in hopes of seeing Tony again. He never did see him. 

*  
“Order up!” Steve announced to order 37. It was nearing the holidays, and it was a terrifying hustle for pastry orders in _Coulson’s Bakery_. They were exceptionally famous in their Danishes, especially the cherry one, also Steve’s favorite. Coulson let him take some sometimes. 

Coulson was awesome always, actually. 

He handed the customer his order and wiped off his hands on his apron, specially decorated for the occasion. Steve’s mother got him into the habit when he first started working here, when he got his own apartment. He and his mother never were really “financially stable”, but Steve was making do now. He taught art classes for disabled kids in downtown Brooklyn, and he enjoyed each and every class. So Steve’s got a home and two steady jobs with enough time to himself. It’s good.

“Steve-o, you want to take out the trash?” Coulson called through the window. He gave him thumbs up and hauled the massive trash bag over his shoulder and opened the door to the back alley. 

“Oi, get outta here, you little rat!” The Italian restaurant owner screamed at a man scrambling from a dumpster. “Git your own damn trash.” 

“Easy, Jerry.” Steve rolled his eyes as the man retreated. “Not everyone gets a good meal ‘round these times.” 

“Yeah, well, I don’t like people scurrying around my dumpster.” 

“You should listen to him, Jerry.” The infamous “dumpster thief”, as he was called around this back alley because they saw him around so often and Coulson insisted they don’t call the cops, retorted. “He is much more sensible than you.” 

The dumpster thief bravely snatched an entire pickle Jerry had thrown at him. 

“Ah, shut up and go home to your box.” 

“Pleasure seeing you men,” the bum waved and ran off. 

“Strange man, he is.” Steve commented. 

“Rat, he is.” Jerry scowled, and went back inside, slamming the door behind him. 

After work, Steve locked up the store and yawned tiredly, looking up at the sky. Snow was beginning to fall, thick, fluffy snowflakes. Personally, the best kind. He and Bucky made snowmen all the time in this kind of snowfall. 

This year, Steve didn’t have a snowman builder in tow. His mother had died a few years ago, Bucky was overseas at war in Afghanistan, and Peggy…

Peggy couldn’t stay, so they said their goodbyes last year when she returned to Europe. Steve got a letter from her a few weeks ago. 

“Careful, ice patch.” A voice said. 

He glanced down and moved sideways away from the slippery ice. He squinted in the darkness and saw the dumpster thief slouching against the wall. 

“Uh, thanks.” 

“Yep.”

“You okay?”

“Peachy. I’ve got a box over there, so you know.” 

Steve heaved a sigh. “Dammit.” He didn't bring home homeless guys like he brought home stray cats and dogs sometimes, but it was Christmas soon, and...well, he looked kind of pathetic.

“Well, I know it’s not the best box, but c’mon.”

“You want a place to sleep tonight?” Steve blurted. 

“What?” the man pulled down his hood, revealing dark hair and dark eyes that reminded Steve of hot chocolate, and unkept scruffy stubble. “Are you insane? Inviting a guy like me into your goddamn home?”

“Only me and my bird. You going to kill me and my bird?” 

The man paused. “What’s your name?”

“Steve.” 

“Steve? Nice name. I’m Tony.” 

Something stirred within Steve’s gut, a distant memory and falling in front of a car and picking up the crinkled $20 bill given to him. The U.S.S. Tony. 

“Oh my God.”

“What? Changing your mind? That’s smart, right there, very smart. I’ll be on my way-“

“There is no fucking way-“

“Huh? What are you talking about, man?”

“No way. Ok, stop.”

Tony turned, raising a brow.

“You wouldn’t have happened to give a scrawny kid a bag of pastries and a $20 bill, about 20 years ago, would you?”

Tony started, and then blinked, studying him. He grinned, the same grin he had all those years ago. “Capsicle.” 

Steve laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me, man. I can’t believe it.”

“How’d I end up with your luck?” Tony groaned, chuckling breathlessly.

“Yours is worse. I had shelter, at least. But I’m not rich.”

“I’m not either, as of a year ago.” Tony snorted. “I lost my company.”

“I’m sorry.”

Tony shook his head. “Me too. Hell, I’d kill to shower with hot water.”

 _Shit._ Thinking about it for only briefly once more because Steve has thought about somehow thanking Tony in the future but never thought he’d see the boy again, and now he's here, Steve reached out and offered his hand. “Want a shower?” 

Tony grinned at him, grasped his hand, and heaved himself up. “Maybe if you join me.” 

“Maybe.” Steve blushed furiously. He didn’t let go of Tony’s hand. They started walking toward his apartment in silence. For a very short time.

“You got vanilla smelling shampoo, Steve?”

“I don’t know.” 

"Do you want to build a snowman?”

Steve smiled. "...Sure."


End file.
